City, county may share cost for flood mapping

As many as a thousand dams holding scores of tributaries and creeks that feed the Nueces River in its regional basin may be the subject of close study by the waterway authority in the coming year with $30 million in state funds benefiting Frio and La Salle counties.

The project, which aims to map the river’s flood plain and examine its potential weaknesses and areas vulnerable to deluge, will depend on a 25-percent contribution from government entities across the region.

In La Salle County, that contribution adds up to around $436,000, which may be paid at zero interest over a ten-year period.

Immediate beneficiaries of the work will be the county government and the city of Cotulla, whose councilors have prepared for the flood plain mapping by allocating funds for their part in the 2026 budget.

Presenting the overall project to county commissioners Monday, August 11, Nueces River Authority representative Travis Pruski said he believes the map’s additional features in early warning, hazard mitigation and dam studies will be of immediate benefit to communities positioned in the river basin.

“This is a project that the authority has been working on for a couple of years, and with the city government,” Pruski told commissioners. “We plan to use funds from the Texas Water Development Board for mapping the entire Nueces River basin, and replacing the outdated flood maps.”

Pruski said the authority’s work for La Salle would include mapping the whole county and creating flood modeling to examine how rising water may affect the dams that are positioned on private property, and what may happen downstream if any number of those retainers fail.

Since the Nueces flows through several South Texas counties from the Hill Country northwest of Uvalde, Pruski indicated studies performed across the region – with other city and county governments contributing – will be tied together.

“We are going to examine how water from the neighboring counties comes down, including Frio County,” Pruski said. “There are sixty-five dams in La Salle County, holding water from creeks.

There are over a thousand in the whole Nueces River basin. We will examine them to determine if they may fail, and how that affects your position.”

The authority’s representative said he believes cities and counties will receive their new flood plain maps and flood modeling schematics through the TWDB-funded project much sooner than those that will be handed down by the Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA), whose approval process is lengthy.

“The new maps can be updated to the existing FEMA map, but you can make them [a part of] your county map,” Pruski said, “not wait six to ten years for FEMA to approve them.”

“Is the city also jumping in on this?” County Judge Leodoro Martinez III asked at Monday’s meeting, whose audience included Cotulla City Administrator David Wright, City Secretary Juanita

Fonseca, and Councilor Manuel Rodriguez.

“Yes, this is going to the council on Thursday,” Wright said. “It’s in the budget. The council has already seen it.”

“Will this be split half and half with the city?” Comm. Erasmo Ramirez asked of the funds contributed by local government entities.

“It is a possibility,” Wright said. “Right now, we have it set up at approximately twenty-five percent. The county is much bigger than the city.”

The cost-sharing, according to a preliminary estimate, puts the fee at up to $35,000 per year for the county and $10,000 per year for the city of Cotulla over a ten-year period. An inter-local agreement will be required between the two governments for the finance plan to take effect.

The first payments toward the contribution will be due in six months, according to Pruski.

“If the city passes it on Thursday, we will have a memorandum of understanding,” the county judge said.

The unanimous vote to proceed with the mapping project under condition of an agreement with the city came on a motion by Comm. Ramirez, seconded by Comm. Raul Ayala.